China Expects the U.S. To Roll Over

Joseph A. Bosco

Security, Asia

Will Washington play dead?

Former Pacific Commander and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has rendered yet another valuable public service, this time as head of Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA (SPF). The organization has produced a comprehensive report assessing China’s evolving strategic posture and presenting alternative scenarios for the U.S.-Japan alliance response to the ensuing threats and opportunities. While the paper is dispassionate and clear-eyed about the risks and openings presented by China's rise, the implications are ominous.

The paper posits four possible outcomes for a future China: a powerful and benevolent state; a powerful and aggressive state; a weak and inward-looking state, or a weak and aggressive state. The study offers a caveat, however: “It is dangerous to base an Alliance strategy on a single future for the China of 2030 . . . [It] . . . will not fall neatly into any of the four alternatives . . . The most likely scenario is elements of different futures. Theoretical neatness aside, the report also states that "current trends project a somewhat more powerful and aggressive China than the United States and Japan have dealt with in the past."

Indeed, on its own terms the report already identifies China's present course as increasingly threatening. We don't need another ten to fifteen years to know from the preponderance of evidence that we already face the worst-case scenario: a powerful and aggressive China that is on course to become even more powerful and more aggressive.

The even more powerful nature of this "future" China, the report prognosticates, would consist of a predominantly market-based economy with growth of five to seven percent; increased restrictions on foreign businesses in China; strongly mercantilist policies overseas; and high defense spending approaching that of the United States. Most of these characteristics are already true of today's China or are rapidly becoming the status quo.